


Fool Me Once

by Symmet



Series: Daisy Chains [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Assisted Suicide, F/M, kind of, warning for it at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5044189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Symmet/pseuds/Symmet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan loses her will to live as months pass without Solas beside her. She has no interest in this shell of a world. Cole tries to help and Solas tries to save her so he can continue on his way. But she does not so easily let go. Not again. Never again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fool Me Once

**Author's Note:**

> Please read previous works before this. I make no promises to how coherent this is otherwise.
> 
> EDIT: I MADE COVER ART! NOW THE ENTIRE SET IS DONE!! :D  
> [](http://s1295.photobucket.com/user/arlanengin/media/Daisy%20chains%20cover%204_zps3crwmp7g.png.html)

She had withdrawn in recent months, her tether to life thinning as the world passed her. She disappeared for longer and longer gaps of time. At first they worried. Then they got used to it.

But this time was different.

By the time Cassandra would order a search party, it would be too late.

Cole would walk unto the little camp, expression drawn but not blank, her body still warm in his arms.

He would give them no answers. None yet would hear, at least.

-

He had not wanted to do it.

But for the first time in months, a spark of life had glowed like an ember in her eyes.

"When I open the rift, Cole, you'll have to seal it using my hand, okay?"

"You will severe your soul from your body. You will be like me."

"Yes."

"They'll be upset."

"Yes."

" _He'll_ be upset."

"Why?" She said it almost petulantly, but a part of her only Cole could see was hurting and hoping at once.

"Because he will."

"Cole." She said softly, "Look into my eyes."

So he had, and he found what she knew, when she opened her pain up to him, and he gave her peace, just as she had once let him do for an injured man in Skyhold.

She deserved no less.

-

Solas had been traveling along the frayed edges of the world - the outskirts of battered cities and the side lines of forgotten towns. He rarely stopped long enough for anyone to notice his cloak and hood before he was gone - and why should they? He knew how to be hidden, which was so much more vital than simply to hide.

But he always listened, for knowledge was found on lips every day as well as in older books and scripts. This was something else Solas had learned, albeit with less enthusiasm.

"Did you hear how the Inquisitor died?"

A farm hand had found his buddies, a voice neither loud nor soft, stopping Solas' world with such ease, such blunder.

"I heard she fought an archdemon in the fade." A friend offered.

"No, I hear it's a cover up, you know, that they don't know. She killed the archdemon way before she died." A petulant friend answered.

"Maybe it was the corruption or something, you never know." The friend returned dismissively.

"But she had a _Warden_ with her. Didn't he make her immune?"

They continued to jabber about it, hemming and hawing over the most insignificant things.

Solas wanted to rip their heads off.

How could they speak of her so simply, she who had given so much for them? Where was the respect for the honored dead? Why did she deserve the same tone of voice one might use to complain about bad crops?

Solas was just about to turn around and - he wasn't sure what, freeze their mouths shut, perhaps - when the girl said, "Are you going to the funeral?"

"I know they say it's open to everyone, but I can hardly afford to be chatting with you two during my break, let alone visiting a herald. She was an elf, you know." The original asker said.

"But she did so much to help us." The girl offered.

"And what, you're gonna convince _your_ mum to let you out, Sara? Besides _I_ hear it was a conspiracy. The whole thing, staged to make the Inquisition get footing. No rifts, none of it, the Herald was just a good mage."

The girl made a disgusted noise, "I swear, Asden, you get stupider every time I talk to you." She left, and when the other two took to discussing how to woo her in her absence, Solas took his leave as well.

-

The open funeral had been organized to last for a week. Solas hated to think what had happened to her body - was a mage keeping an ice spell up, perhaps? Dorian? Vivienne? Were they switching off? But in truth he did not really care.

So long as they suffered slightly.

For failing her.

There were public hours, when people could amass to pay their respects, and Solas indeed saw many small shrines that had been erected in the courtyard, somewhat overwhelmed by the many flowers, so many wilted, so many fresh. He could see her in his minds eye, cruelly, the way she would have frowned if she knew. _"I'm no herald. I don't want worship."_ She'd whispered to him once. Even though she was the only one who had ever deserved it. Who deserved far more. It didn't matter now.

He would not be taking part in that.

He needed to see her for himself.

He snuck into the fort with ease, a whisper along the passageways, for this place was more familiar to him than any of them, and with a heavy heart, he went to tell her goodbye for a second time, the last time.

He avoided everything that moved, yet he made swift time, and though he was concious of every being walking these halls, there was a sort of low rining in his ears, and a creeping darkness around the edges of the vision. He thinks it had been like this when he saw Mythal's body, when he'd fled her temple to try and comprehend what had happened, before even thinking of what to do.

The door guarding her body came too quickly. He had travelled almost non-stop for a day since he'd heard the news, tireless in his pursuit. And now that he was here, he paused. A dead part of him knew he wasn't ready, no matter how much he'd told himself he'd come to terms with her death.

He wasn't coming to say goodbye.

He was coming to beg forgiveness from a corpse.

He wanted to pretend this would strengthen his resolve. That he would be more set on his duty now. Now that the last vibrant tether that bound him to this broken world was cut. But in truth? It would break him along the edges. He would curse himself and his ambitions. Mortal. Painfully, gut-wrenchingly so. He'd known from the moment Cassandra sat him in front of the tiny body and ordered him to save her that she would die within a matter of several years. The mark was too hungry to allow her anything more.

It had never occurred to him that she would die before it consumed her.

He'd told himself when he left her he was giving her more time to be with someone good, someone honest.

He'd told himself he'd destroy the world before it killed her so she wouldn't have to suffer another of his mistakes.

He'd told himself he would get strong enough to take the anchor, to save her.

He'd told himself he would save her, because he was selfish, because he was cruel, because even if she hated him, even if she never forgave him, he could not fathom continuing on without her.

 

He'd told himself entirely too many things that he suddenly realized did not matter.

That he could not be with her. That she distracted him. That she couldn't see what he became. Now what? How long would he spend in mourning? How long would it take him to recover?

As if he would.

The wolf in the back of his mind hissed softly. Would he even forgive them for this? For letting this happen to her? He already knew he couldn't, but would he be able to stop himself from acting on it? From punishing them?

 _You stop yourself from acting on everything that was important. You could have saved her, could have loved her. You will let her friends live because that is not what she would have wanted. She deserves at least that much from you, seeing as you were planning to take her entire world away already, a_  voice in the back of his mind both reprimands and reminds him, sounding painfully close to Wisdom.

His hand settles on the firm wood, but it feels dry against his finger tips. Braces himself for something that could not be prepared against, and pushes.

The first thing he saw was her face, young and pure as the day before he left, beautiful, as if she slept, perhaps somewhere his aching heart could follow, into the Fade, where they could dream together. Where he could show her ancient wonders of the past, and in turn watch the wonder in her eyes as she listened.

But then his eyes saw her body, still as stone, and that she had been dressed in a gown, long and white, something she would have never worn, or perhaps not as Inquisitor, with a wreath of flowers set gently upon her head. His blood turned to lead, his heart a frozen rock in his chest.

A part of him had not truly believed it. No, not his _lath_ \- not his Pangur. _It was a trick_ , a part of him had been thinking, _to lure him back. She had not given up on him after all._ That was what he had hoped. But the truth was she had never given up on him. He had given up on her.

_No, no, any moment now._

She would spring up when he opened the door, wrap her arms around him in an embrace and beat her fist on his back, _'Emma lath, you have cost me much, but don't think I will be letting you go now that I have you again.'_ Then she would laugh breathily into his ear and break all of his will to stay away, would take his hands in hers and lead them away from this room. This small, quiet, too still room that wrapped a vice grip around his chest and made it difficult to breathe. 

Instead, she was motionless, caught in the hush of death, arranged on the altar in a painfully close approximation as she would have been for _uthenera_. This could not have happened. He would have been there - _should_ have. She, so bright, could not have been taken by something as petty as death.

Something in him snapped.

" _No_ , vhenan."

He heard his staff falling with a clatter to the ground, but he did not remember letting it go, could not feel it had been there in his hand. His plans of secrecy and discretion fractured, fragments littering the floor when he entered, striding to her side.

He knelt by her body, arms coming up to cradle her head.

He was acutely aware of someone coming up behind him, but he could not tear his eyes away, "How could you do this?" He breathed, "You were supposed to protect her. There were enough of you, how could you fail?"

"We did not think to protect her from herself." Cassandra said quietly.

So she had been watching over the body, some part of Solas approved of that, that Cassandra should take on the job of a lowly guard, even if it was too late. But the rest of him was looking at _her_ , so innocent, so fragile in death.

Was it even death? Her body was not warm, but it bent to him sure enough, not stiff as ice when it should have been. Had she not been dead for a while? Solas could sense some strangeness here. She was in between, as if her soul has crossed the threshold holding her body's hand.

"Cole still will not tell us what happened." Cassandra said, “You're welcome to -"

"He is not." Said a wispy voice as Cole stepped into the room from the shadows of a window, "He killed her more than I did."

"What did you do?" Solas growled, turning to look at the spirit, and _now_ he could feel the space in his hand where his staff was supposed to be, it's absence.

"I gave her what she wanted. You took it away." Cole said stepping forward to place another daisy on her crown.

"How could -" Solas began to snarl but there was some hiss of smoke and Cole rushed him.

 -

Somehow, they were on top of one of the towers, Cole pinning him down, a blaze of nameless emotion in his eyes, one hand up and back as if he made to strike Solas.

Then he pulled back, calm again, "You left. You gave up all your claims to her happiness or her safety when you said goodbye. She could not bear to live without you, so I gave her the other thing."

"What happened?" Solas said quietly, getting up. The spirit was right of course. In this, Solas was most to blame. Not that he could excuse it if Cole has been the one to...

"She asked me to look into her eyes." Cole said distantly, “And then she asked me to close the rift behind her."

Solas stared at the spirit until, with growing horror, he realized what Cole meant, "She opened a rift? And you used the mark to cut her soul away from her body?" Some dull, sluggish pain was distracting his anger, he stumbled back a little, overcome with a fresh agony.

He knew what this was.

This was hope.

"You can't call her back." Cole belligerently, "Not unless you mean to stay. You can't have both. It's too late for that."

"Why?" Solas said, “Why must it be too late?"

Cole opened his mouth and then gasped, falling to his knees, clutching his head, "I knew. Not the first moment I saw you but the second, after we returned to Haven, you were standing on the steps. I knew then. And it got worse every time, every -"

He bent forward, hands rushing to his chest, as if he could still a beating heart that had never lain there.

"You got more beautiful every time I saw you, how?”

Solas watched in shock.

Cole looked up, face worn, "How did you manage that? I liked you too much to push you away, I love you too much to keep you."

Then Cole gave a hollow laugh, "I did not know you would do it to me, though. That was cruel. It hurt, Solas, it hurt, it hurts, Solas. Ma vehnan, you threw it away."

Solas knelt beside the suffering spirit, wondering what link Cole had found to channel these words through.

"Where is my home, my heart, without you?" Cole whispered, "I'm lost here, but no more lost than before. No more than without you."

Solas lay a gentle hand on Cole's shoulder.

"All the world is a barren waste, you planted the seed when first you saved me, then nurtured it when you loved me, heart. Oh, Solas, why are you surprised to find it dead when you leave it? All the world is empty now."

Perhaps it was no channel. Such true words, words long lost to the mind. Cole did not usually speak like this.

"No, mah vehnan, you are wrong, you never needed me to grow, you were strong all your own, I was merely a bird resting under the shade of your branches. I could not stay."

Cole began to shake, and then it suffered through him as laughter, as if a trees boughs dancing with worried leaves in a night wind, "What sweet lies from a god to a girl? Tell me that I own you next, or that you have loved me for all of time." The words are bitter, brokenly whispered.

She could hear him through the connection. And she knew his secret.

"I do not lie, it was no god that kept you alive, no god that traveled your journeys with you." He said gently into Cole's ear.

He pulled the hat off and a tiny sigh escaped Cole, a sound of ache so great it could only weather the world when it shaped itself so small. He pulled Cole towards him, for was it not her sigh, and her head, and her words?

Long arms wrapped around him then, thin and gangly, nothing like her own had been, yet filled with her own silent purpose. They trembled, light as leaves on his back, as if afraid to hold him any closer for fear he might become air.

Perhaps he should.

"And yet you still do not understand." Cole said, almost as worn as she would have been, laying his head on Solas' chest, "I never loved a god, Solas. I never loved him more than you." Cole's voice turned ragged with tears neither the spirit nor she could shed, "I do not need Fen'harel, I need you."

He pressed a chaste kiss to Cole's dry forehead. "And what if we are the same?" He said softly, “What if I can no more stay than he?"

“Then the herald can no more live than I."

"What is the Herald but you, vehnan?" Solas said with a sigh.

"What is the Dread Wolf but you?" Cole whispered, voice small, smaller than he had ever heard hers or anyone's. She'd tricked him. Clever girl.

"There is no time for games of word. What is remains the same, no matter how you speak of it. I cannot stay and you cannot go."

Cole shook his head petulantly, “You are wrong. There is nothing for me here without you. You cannot bargain me back into this world with nothing to barter."

"What of the lives to save? Do they mean nothing to you?" Solas intoned.

She cursed him softly with Cole's mouth, elven old and new, "The world is grey with you away, the color does not last. If only I could make you stay, but that was in the past."

She cursed him again, "You do not understand, _you do not understand_. I never loved a god. Damn it all, if you would just _understand_." Cole shook his head, bowed into Solas' neck, mumbling nothingness.

"Will you come if I call you back?”

Cole shuddered. He said quietly, "Ma vehnan, do not go."

She mimicked it back at him, "I'll make you a deal, O wolf, go nowhere and I will do the same."

"Will you come," He repeated, "if I call."

The fingers at his back curled, "Yes," Cole rasped out, "I will always come when you call."

"Wait for me." He whispered.

"When will I not?" She sighed.

He hugged Cole close, and then the connection was gone.

-

He returned to the room alone, Cole having scattered like the wind. Told Cassandra to get the guards away, to leave as well. Little answers to her insistent questions, refusing to promise anything. He was too sick with worry, anxious with hope, to bow to her will. She had been unable to command him the first day in Haven. She was unable to do so now.

The Fade roared when he cast out his mind and searched. He caught fleeting pulses of her, but she raced quicker than he anticipated, as if she could not bear his gaze to linger on her there.

And then...

Beneath his palms she drew a long and terrible gasp, but it was her heart rumbling beneath his fingers, a bursting tremor of blood rousing her body that made him open his eyes and exit the Fade perhaps far quicker then he had ever before.

"Ma Serenas." He had planned to say, but when her eyes opened, the starlight trapped inside them found him, and a great selfish weakness took ahold of him.

She pressed her lips to his greedily, perhaps, but it melted into tears before they had even parted.

"No," she begged, "Do not take the color away with you again, Solas please."

He quieted her as best he could, tried to make peace with her resettling soul, but finally the only way he could convince her to rest was to promise he would still be there when she woke.

Even then, on the bed Cassandra had cleared for them, she fell asleep clutching his hand, breath slow and sweet.

He would not let anyone ask him anything for fear of waking her. "She needs to rest," he would say, "her spirit more than her body. Leave us be."

She had nightmares, more savage then he could remember, about him, no doubt. He tried to soothe them over as best he could, but these were resistant. Her breath was slow one moment and then scattered the next. Her face at peace and then eyebrows drawn. Her fingers twitched, and he'd wonder what she fought. Eventually with little else to do, he decided to join her, and offer what little happiness he could before he left.

-

Her dreams were no things of peace. The rushed around, like a warped and distraught erosion of the Fade, the world tinted red and orange. Any other occasion, he would have been fascinated. Instead he let his eyes drift over the expanse.

Nothing stayed still, flying past, towards a distant point on the horizon. Her. It must have been.

He found her on what he realized was the top of the tower where he had tried to comfort her through Cole. She was overlooking the battlements, knees drawn up to her chest, back to him.

"My biggest fear used to be that I would lose you to the Elder one, or a simple demon." She said, not turning to look at him.

"Then why did you bring me with you? I was as much use researching from here as I was traveling with you." Solas murmured.

She turned to look at him, a hurting smile gracing her lips, "I was afraid of returning to find everything burnt to ash, you along with it."

He went to sit beside her, “After Haven, you mean."

She gave him a confused look, then her expression cleared to pain, like a bad joke had been told, and she alone knew it.

"No," she said quietly, looking away, "Not after."

Solas studied her face, "What will you do when I leave?"

She closed her eyes, "Kill myself, probably. The Fade was nearly crueler than outside it."

"Don't." He whispered, "Please." He drew her close, laying a kiss on her head. She sank into him, the same sigh again, the same pain too great to be known big.

"Everywhere," she whispered into his collar, "You were everywhere, but it was never you."

He held her tightly, aching for this moment to last a millennia, knowing it would never be enough.

She shook her head. "It never occurred to me that you might take yourself away."

He slumped, "It is for the best, you know this."

She pulled away, smiling, but a false one, tight at the edges. "I have slept long enough, Solas."

"Yes," he agreed, "They will want answers."

She huffed, "So do I. I wish good luck to anyone who wants those."

Solas made himself let her go. If it was this hard in dream, he had no intention if testing his will outside of it.

"Promise we will speak before you leave," she said, "I do not know how long they will question me, but do not let this be done with some short goodbye. That is not how this story ends."

He nodded, only because he did not want others to become entangled in their affairs. Only because she would not let him go without it. Only because he knew she deserved it, because he owed her that much.

Only because he was a liar and if he needed to, he could run away and never say goodbye and hope she hated him for it.

-

It took several days for her to appease them all. Some were furious, some glad she was alive. All viewed it as a second chance - another miracle of the Herald. Another gift - blessing - from the gods. Another divine sign. All except the herald herself.

An irony that they all attributed it to the wrong god, Solas supposes.

Solas kept out of their way, hiding in her personal chambers, knowing he would not be looked for there so long as she was elsewhere. The only visitor he got was Cole, who rushed forward to hug him tightly before handing him a small, broken ceramic mug - for tea? - and then leaving.

Solas had been perusing her small bookshelf. She had several untouched tomes on warfare from Cullen - a collection of dreary volumes about strategy. A small pamphlet on treaties, likely from Josephine, also sat, only mostly untouched. There was a book about Halla by a better than ignorant human, which had crude drawings in it, likely the work of Sera. A copy of the writ granting the Inquisition the authority to act had been thumbed through - seemingly multiple times, some pages dog-eared and others with tiny notes in the margins. A book from Dorain, a small manuscript purely on magic theory. It oversimplified a great deal and was more theory than magic, but Solas admitted to himself that it was less biased than most Tevinter works. There was a colorful "zesty romance novel" as it read on the front, about the forbidden love of an 'elf and a human' who eventually take their own lives to escape the opposition of their warring families. It had been placed in the bookshelf with a note from Varric tucked between the pages as a bookmark, gleefully asking her to rate his rival’s work. There was a small, lovely book of poetry that Solas suspected was from Liliana. He currently had open a book _he_ had gifted. She had placed leaves as bookmarks, kinder to this than the others, sometimes scrawling something illegible or nonsensical on one of the leaves.

"You're still here."

He looked up in surprise. Before he could say anything, she'd noticed the book open on his lap and her face flushed, "What are you doing?" She snapped.

He hummed, "If you were attempting to turn it back into a plant by sticking more leaves in it, I'll commend the noble effort, but you definitely-"

He had forgotten his place again, was only ever going to hurt her, it seemed, and that she was across the room in a moment, lips to his, took too long to recognize, too long to draw away from a kiss he should have anticipated.

" _That_ -" she pulled the book away, "- is _mine_ , thank you very much."

"Why leaves?" He managed to ask, breathless.

Solas regained his thoughts as she closed it carefully so the leaves would not fall out, and tucked it gently back in the shelf.

"Because I hadn't thought to bring any parchment with me when I was reading it." She said, turning to look at him, and how sweet her small smile was, warm enough that he ached to never cause her sadness again.

But it could not be avoided.

He stood up suddenly, "You asked for no short goodbye, but I will not put us through a long one."

She sidestepped to block his path, "Why?"

"Why kill someone quickly rather than slow? So the pain does not last."

"So you know this will kill me." She almost accused under her breath, then louder, "Yet we will continue to live, continue to feel the pain." She argued.

Solas shook his head, "No, you cannot distract me. The story ends here."

Suddenly a great anger swept over her, and she pushed him against a wall, glaring up at him, "How does your story end? Does it end in death? Does it end in _your_ death?" She beat one fist on the wall, the other holding his arm, "Does it?"

"I expect that is how most stories end." Solas started, but it served only to anger her further, "May the Dread Wolf stub his stupid toe on a stump!" She hissed, "And get stung in the face by a swarm of angry bees!"

He blinked, and then bit down on the small smile she had caused him.

She caught it however, and pushed away from the wall in disgust. " _This_ story, then. You mean for it to end in your death, no?"

Solas stiffened, "What does it matter? The Inquisition will-"

"Will continue without me, as I'm sure you expect the world to do without you. How can you deny me what you seek for yourself?"

Solas shook his head, "What I must do and what you choose to do are different. You do not need me, you never did."

"Wrong!!" She hissed, sinking into a crouch on the stone floor, "May the Dread Wolf learn, but it is too late!"

"Explain it to me, then." Solas said, "Do not tell me again that you never loved a god, vhenan, help me understand." He had bent down, placed his hands on her shoulders.

She looked up, worn, "I made a terrible mistake." She murmured, "I chose the absolute worst person possible, just the complete opposite of what I needed," a slow, vacant smile grew on her face, "But how was I to know?"

"Pangur -" he began, remembering that look, feeling it hollow something in his bones, his chest, his stomach, but she shook herself, recollecting, coming back for him.

She gave a low sigh, picking up one of his hands in one of her own, like a cherished bauble to ward off evil spirits or help her gather her thoughts.

"When I woke up in Haven's dungeon, I had no memory of how I got there, why I was there, or what _this_ -" she lifted a hand still vibrant green with rift magic "- was. Everything was in chaos, I was going to be executed at some point, I had to go to the top of a mountain to try and close a giant hole in the sky that was apparently killing me. You know, as one does. Regular Tuesday in Thedas."

She folded Solas' hand in her own, thinking over her next words.

"I never ... no." She lifted his hand up, kissed it more for herself than him, then pressed it against her cheek. Just as he was opening his mouth to encourage her to continue, she did.

"It didn't happen the first time I saw you. I was still trying to find footing in the new circumstances, world ending, conclave failing, I didn't have time to see one face more than others."

She paused, then looked at him, "Did you ever notice?"

"Notice what?" He said softly, afraid to break her out of her reverie.

Her shoulders slumped slightly, and she shook her head, "You probably remember the first time we met - when I was conscious, that is. But do you remember the second?"

Solas tilted his head at her, "Ma serenas, I do not." He said gently,

She nodded slightly, as if unsurprised. Then, a small smile spread on her lips, eyes distant, a fond memory. _A memory of him_, he realized.

"You were on the steps of Haven, looking anxious, not that I really knew you well enough to see it then. Perhaps you felt you had missed your chance to quietly steal away from the mess in the chaos of the Herald. You probably wanted to stay and help, but you also wanted to leave and be forgotten."

Solas remembered it now. He had elected to stay only because Cassandra had all but threatened him to look over the newly named "Herald", even though he would have already. His interest in the Fade had given him enough pause that he missed his chance to slip away unnoticed.

She had stopped speaking, gaze far away, expression troubled.

"Ma vhenan?" He said softly, drawing her back to him, "What is it?"

She blinked. "Would it surprise you to know I thought of you like that long before we had ever kissed?"

"Like what? I do not understand."

"Ma vhenan. I tried to stay out of your way, I didn't want to be some infatuated child, but -" she shook her head, blushing, "I was always bothering you, it felt like."

Solas sat, stunned, "That does not simply happen. I helped you, yes, but no more than anyone else. Was it because I am -"

"An elf? No. It was nice for some things. I don't think I would have liked having to translate the small elven I _do_ know. I just chose you, a mistake, a bad one. I only needed a person, I did not need a god." She said, bowing her head to press his hand to her cheeks.

He moved to cup her face, and she let him, "Abelas, I still do not understand, need a god for what?"

She gave a pained smile, tears tipping over the edges. Those he did not wipe away, he kissed, though that seemed to make her sadder. Perhaps because she knew his time to leave was drawing closer.

He pulled back, reluctantly, to ask the question again with his eyes.

She took a deep breath, letting it rattle along her insides. How hollow she sounded, how worn.

Finally she seemed to think of something and offered her open palm to him, green sparks drifting from it.

He pressed his fingertips to hers, and then let his hand fall away.

Her eyes were bright, both with tears and some other emotion.

" _This_ is not my anchor." She said.

Before he could ask her to explain, her hand fisted and came to rest on his chest.

" _This_ is." she choked out.

"It could have been anyone, maybe. We'll never know. But it was _you_. I was never strong enough for this life. But I could be - I can. If I have someone to be strong with, someone to be strong for."

"Oh." He whispered, as realization hit him.

She turned her face away, body wracked with sobs, relief, perhaps, that he finally understood. Her fist still pressed against his chest, clenched tight, shaking with her body.

"Ma vhenan." He said achingly, and gathered her unto him. She sobbed quietly, letting herself finally break in his arms, now knowing he could piece her back together.

"Do not leave again. _Please_." She wept.

He pulled her close, "No, my heart. Not again."

And he could say those words and mean them.

**Author's Note:**

> FIN


End file.
